BYP100 is committed to the long-term struggle for Black liberation, human dignity, and transformative justice. As our people – Black men, women, girls, femmes, and folks of all or no gender alike – are slaughtered in our streets by the hands of police and killed slowly and quietly by other means of state violence, we continue the push to build power within our communities.

We understand non-violence as one tactic in long-term strategy to achieve Black liberation, not as an inherent value. In order to actualize an abolitionist future we will have to come into direct confrontation with the police state.

However, the Dallas community and our broader movement are now dealing with the aftermath of a type of violence well-known in America. We must hold how everyday people who showed up to call for justice were unjustly placed in the path of danger. This reminds us that safety is never guaranteed. The incidents that are occurring in places such as Dallas, Georgia, St. Louis, and Tennessee are a direct response to violence in places like Baton Rouge. Only through collective action grounded in strong communities and transformative justice can we realize a safer world for all of us.

Our stance is not one of retreat, but of increased commitment to divestment from policing and investment in the future of Black communities. We understand that the state and the media will describe our resistance as violent, just like they will describe Black skin as such. These strategies are meant to disband our movement and to tighten the state’s grip on our lives and communities. In order to ensure the safety and security of our people in this moment, it is imperative that we move strategically and in ways that center our values.

We have been told that the duty of the police is to protect and serve our people. Meanwhile, the same officers who swear to uphold justice and dignity are not accountable to “gun control” measures and have explicitly targeted and unjustly murdered Black folks living unapologetically in their Blackness. While the right to own a weapon is celebrated as a pillar of American citizenship, gun laws do not apply equally to Black people. Philando Castile was gunned down in cold blood for carrying a firearm he legally owned. This tells us once again that Black people lack full access to citizenship and humanity in America.

The system in which we live under has waged an attack on Black bodies through social and political genocide. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were murdered for trying to survive in a world that denied them of dignity. Mya Hall. Sandra Bland. Rekia Boyd. Betty Jones. The list goes on and on. We push to dismantle the police state and abolish the prison system.

As the state continues to uphold a status quo of anti-Black racism, we remember the words of James Baldwin: “to be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”